A firearm is a weapon from which a shot is discharged by gunpowder. Firearms typically include sight device for guiding the eye of a shooter along a sight line or axis for aiming the firearm toward a selected target. Of particular significance are two-piece sights composed of two separate components including front and rear aiming pieces or sights lined up along a sight line or axis. In such a two-piece sight, the firearm is aimed toward a selected target by aligning the front sight with the rear sight. In a conventional two-piece sight, the front sight includes a post or bead, which is aligned within a notch or aperture of the rear sight. Centering the front sight within the rear sight along the sight line or axis by eye enables the shooter to accurately target a selected target downrange along the sight line or axis.
The front and rear sights of a two-piece site are located on either end of the firearm barrel, and are aligned substantially parallel to the central longitudinal axis of the firearm barrel, whereby a bullet fired from the firearm will strike the selected target below the point of aim. A bullet fired from a firearm inherently drops during flight, producing a curved trajectory. Accordingly, two-piece sights are often aligned at a slight angle to the central longitudinal axis of the barrel, whereby the sight line of the aligned front and rear sights results in a slight upward angle of the central longitudinal axis of the barrel enabling a bullet fired from the firearm to pass through the sight line first when the bullet rises and then as it is falling. The term “substantially parallel” in relation to the alignment of the front and rear sights of a two-piece sight relative to the central longitudinal axis of the firearm barrel is a term of art that characterizes two-piece sights that are aligned at a pre-selected slight angle relative to the central longitudinal axis of the firearm barrel. The pre-selected slight angle referring to the alignment of the front and rear sights of a two-piece sight is well known and is chosen according to the skill attributed to the skilled artisan. The distances at which a bullet traverses the sight line can be adjusted by adjusting the position of the front and rear sights relative to each other, which is well known to the skilled artisan.
In a conventional two-piece sight, the post or bead of the front sight aligned within the notch or aperture of the rear sight inherently obstructs the user's field of view along the sight line toward a target. This obstruction of the shooters field of view along the sight line by the post or bead of the front sight is distracting, and inherently interferes with the shooter's ability to focus his eye on the intended target aligned along the sight line. Given these and other deficiencies in two-piece sights, the need for continued improvement in two-piece sights is evident.